Has anybody introduced Imperial character or groups that are, more or less, sympathetic or friendly to the party? I was reading Toydarian Grocery Shopping which features a swamptrooper squad who can, depending on the actions of the players, actually help you out a little and was thinking these guys seem pretty normal.

Maybe I've read to much Timothy Zahn, but I don't into the idea that every single Imperial is automatically a bad guy.

I think it depends on your point of view as there are indications that the regular storm troopers are mainly comprised of those that break during training effectively being brainwashed into loyal drone soldiers.

Well that's what I assumed was meant in the first book dealing with Leonis Zare from Star Wars Rebels.

Whilst they make handy bad guys nothing says they can't be useful especially if its advantageous to them of course!

I wouldn't use Stormtroopers as sympathetic characters, but I can certainly see local security forces in that light. Also sector and regional navy troops. What one has to understand about the Empire is, for the most part, they exist to keep the peace and allow trade to continue to flow. It's really only at the higher levels and specialized services that it starts to get malevolent.

I do it form time to time withing reasonable bounds.

In my current campaign I've got several adventures planned where the Rebel/NR Players will encounter Imperials that will be quite friendly and cooperative. In context they have every reason to be, it's in everyone's best interest in both the long and short term.

That said, there's other conditions that I would block it. For example I wouldn't have Stormtroopers knowingly and intentionally help out my players without a really, really, really good reason.

I wrote an adventure module with just this in mind:

The Laws of War

This is going to get deep...and long.

Imps don't see themselves as bad guys. They are the good guys to themselves. And to humans in the core worlds, they are the good guys. They keep the peace. Life is good. Even to most aliens in the core worlds, they are the good guys. Yeah, they may be second class citizens, but life is still pretty good.

Every Imp solider isn't some evil, racist attack animal whose only defining quality is the lust for destruction.

Kids growing up in the core worlds view Stormtroopers as heroes. Knights in shining armor. They aspire to be something that great. Most of the officers higher up the ranks are going to be pretty evil. Kind of have to be to progress. And a good number of Stormtroopers are going to be racist dirtbags, but I think you'd find that in the US army too. Some of the people join to provide peace and protection, others join to kill (insert derogatory racist insult here).

You could very easily have Imperial agents, troops, and even lower level officers that are willing to work with player characters as long as the Imps have no reason to question the characters, or the characters are not well known criminals wanted by the Empire.

I love tossing Imps into campaigns/adventures as more than just enemies. Friendly officer in Imperial Intelligence needs some thugs to perform some work that Imps just can't do in exchange for expunging some Imperial related criminal activities from their records. Turns out the guy was also involved with the Black Sun and the stuff the characters were doing was helping him make a power grab inside the Black Sun organization and he never made good on his side of the deal.

Had the players on a backwoods Imperial controlled planet, but the population was so small, security was lax. So no one noticed they were wanted. Tensions were high any time they had to deal with the Imps, but they actually worked together a little bit. Until one of the players went a little too far, and background checks were made. Things heated up after that.

One adventure had a low level Imperial officer hire them to track down a missing Imperial civilian transport that had mysteriously disappeared.

"Fear will keep the local systems in line."

While you may hold the view, kmanweiss, that the Imperials do not view themselves as "evil" or "bad guys?" The higher-ups in the Empire certainly realize they're ruling through tyranny ... and are at the whims of a sadistic emperor and his extremely violent and unpredictable agent.

Knights in shining armor? Um, how would you react if everywhere you went, you saw armored-up, faceless troops patrolling the grounds holding assault rifles?

As a good-vs-evil story, the imps are bad. And seeing how Star Wars OT was based on (or practically copied) classic fantasy and adventure stories, that`s basically how it goes, the Stortroopers are the evil kings evil guards.

But between the initial idea, the writing and the shooting of the movies, changes happened. Luke wasn`t the hero who ended up with the princess, Han wasn`t the sleazy rogue type and nothing more, he got dept and personality to him. A lot of changes happened because of the people who worked with Lucas, the casting, the actors interpretations, Lucas` ex-wife and other critical voices who helped the story become better and more meaningfull than the story about a guy named Luke Starkiller(really, look it up!) would imply.

But the biggest changes happens between the movies and the fans. The fans make their own enterpretations of the world presented to them. Suddenly we argue if the little people in the woods could actually beat the evil kings guards in a fight by knocking them on the helmets or how magic really works in this faerytale story.
The Zahn books are interpretations of the story universe. Fans of the books will again interpret those interpretations, and so on.
This is fiction and you bring your own meaning to it! Fans will interpret Star Wars, maybe in a completely different way than the writer originally meant it. The same with each and every EotE campaign, we present and play out our versions of the story universe. Hell, in my game Tatooine is inspired by westerns, Hutts are like old southern slave owners and the swoop gangs on Nar Shaddaa are based on the themed gangs in the 1979 movie Warriors. It`s still all Star Wars.

I say go for Imperial good guys!

I think when getting help from Imperials, it's important to convey a proper sense of fear. If you sweet-talk someone at the California DMV or local tax office into cutting you a little break, the most they're probably afraid of is a stern talk from their supervisor. "Well, we're not supposed to do this, but if you can be sure to get this in by Friday, I can give you an extension." Your average Imperial employee will probably lose his job outright, and be blacklisted from ever holding another government job. And that's for minor bureaucratic stuff. So while plenty of Imperials are decent folks, It's gonna be tough to get them to stick their neck out for you. The ones who are willing are either corrupt (and therefore dangerous) or fed up and just need a little nudge into sedition.

When you think of official society in the Empire, it's probably best to think of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. Most folks go about their day-to-day lives without much problem, but they don't even bend the rules, and have a constant cloud of paranoia over their heads. Everyone knows someone who did a favor or said the wrong thing to the wrong person, and then that person just disappeared one day.

Now, that said, when you get out to the fringe, things may be different. There are "Imperial" colonies and planets that have never seen a Star Destroyer or Stormtrooper. The local marshal may get his salary from the Imperial Payment Office, but beyond his little hexagonal badge, he's a local good ol' boy through and through.

I suppose the further from the Core (of the galaxy, not the rulebook) you get, the more likely you are to encounter the regular kind of people who just so happen to be Imperials, whereas the closer you get the more fanatically loyal the Imperials will be. I just don't buy into the idea that Imperials are always chaotic evil, and I believe it more interesting to run into an officer or a squad of stormies or other Imperials who are just doing their duty, and are maybe nice people, when you get to the bottom line.

And really, playing Edge doesn't preclude you being an outlaw -- a regular Colonist or Explorer by nature isn't illegal, and if you're party is mostly on the right side of the law, why should you be afraid of the Imperials? I think it'd be a fun fake out to players: build it up like the hammer is coming down or they're going to be detained for pointless reasons and then have the Stormtroopers only ask for directions to the nearest Space McDonalds or have the local Customs official who's a nice guy and just lets the off with a friendly warning.

I suppose the further from the Core (of the galaxy, not the rulebook) you get, the more likely you are to encounter the regular kind of people who just so happen to be Imperials, whereas the closer you get the more fanatically loyal the Imperials will be. I just don't buy into the idea that Imperials are always chaotic evil, and I believe it more interesting to run into an officer or a squad of stormies or other Imperials who are just doing their duty, and are maybe nice people, when you get to the bottom line.

And really, playing Edge doesn't preclude you being an outlaw -- a regular Colonist or Explorer by nature isn't illegal, and if you're party is mostly on the right side of the law, why should you be afraid of the Imperials? I think it'd be a fun fake out to players: build it up like the hammer is coming down or they're going to be detained for pointless reasons and then have the Stormtroopers only ask for directions to the nearest Space McDonalds or have the local Customs official who's a nice guy and just lets the off with a friendly warning.

They're not chaotic evil, they're lawful evil.

Also, there's a lot of precident for members of the Empire to awaken to its evil during their career. There are entire swaths of legends devoted to those who turn on the Empire from positions of power within it.

I don't think everyone who is in the Empire and didn't defect is evil by any means but I do think there is a glass ceiling keeping the non-evil members from the upper ranks during the Palpatine era. I would say naval captain or equivalent at the highest. Maybe a low ranking flag officer if they have high ranking patrons. And most such officers would probably be kept away from the Core

Of course post Palpatine those restrictions would loosen as the situation grew more, and more desperate.

Meh, i like my shades of grey (No, not that book!) so i think of the various motivations for the NPCs.

Why does he/she do it? What will it accomplish? Is there an end-goal?

Even Tarkin who was an evil bastard did not kill anybody on a whim, there was always a plan behind it.

So yes of course i show nice Imperials as well as evil ones.

I usually do it sooner or later, the supposedly bad guy is actually not that bad, or a greater threat makes it seem prudent to ally oneself with former enemies, or something else that shakes up convention. Not every Imperial is a world-destroying monster, or even if they are, maybe there is something more terrible still that can only be stopped by working together.

I think it works well with the shady world of Edge. It provides interesting conflict for Jedi or rebels. Difficult decisions like that can be a lot of fun. As long as it is not overdone, I guess.

COMPNOR SAG leaders can make for a twisted not quite bad guy. Part camp counselor, and part informer, these guys have drank the cool aid, but they're not going to think of themselves as evil and they'll try their best to keep their underage minions alive.

As to the original question, I would say it's certainly okay to have helpful Imperials, particularly if they're petty bureaucrats or local officals.

As to this debate on the "evilness" of the average imperial...
1) I would venture to say that your typical imperial, in D&D alignment terms, is going to be lawful neutral. The mechanism is certainly lawful evil, and certain jobs lean more that way (ISB for instance), but the Empire is keeping peace and order. Through harsh measures sometimes granted, but to the empire, the rebellion is a terrorist organization.

2) Bear in mind that the Tarkin Doctrine was the strategy of a very evil man, approved by an even more evil man (the emperor) and your average imperial has no input on such policies, and many would disagree with them.

3) The empire is a huge bureaucracy, and represents not only the top tiers of government, but local government as well. While local government forces are not directly imperial, they are indirectly part of the empire. A lot of the imperial bureaucracy deals with law-enforcement in one way or another. This is a necessary part of any government, and you can't say that the local cops are bad for wanting to keep criminals off the street. I think Luke's attitude in a New Hope is probably representative of a lot of people, including local governments. "It's not like I like the Empire--I hate it, but there's nothing I can do about it right now."

4) Throughout the EU there are a fair number of officers who avoid massacring civilians, collateral damage, who care about the lives of their troops, etc.

When I said chaotic, I generally use that in reference to pointless acts of cruelty. Like Kallus kicking a stormtrooper to his death just show how bad a guy he is. It's probably not 100% with how most here understand it, and I wrote it without thinking that a roleplaying forum might take it to mean something a bit closer to home.